Greetings Eclipse Planning Council.
The EMO has received messages from two separate individuals with concerns regarding accessibility in the Eclipse IDE moving forward.
Here's a clip from one of the messages.
I recently learned from a video on the Eclipse Foundation's official YouTube channel, "Towards a modern Eclipse UI: Adding Chromium support to the Eclipse IDE" (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_87vJwChNKE), that there are plans to modify the UI of Eclipse. I kindly request that you consider the importance of preserving full accessibility for visually impaired users when implementing these changes.
Introducing a canvas into pages could adversely affect the accessibility of content for screen reader programs used by visually impaired individuals. This is because items inside the canvas are presented as images, rather than distinct components in the window. Given this, it is crucial to comply with the SWT accessibility guidelines and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) v2.0 standards when updating the UI.
The other one was similar, but with this important addition:
Please note that Eclipse is the only IDE that is fully accessible to visually impaired individuals.
The quality of our accessibility support is a critical aspect of the Eclipse IDE for many in our community and an important distinguishing feature.
In a recent related discussion, I referred to the quality of the Eclipse IDE's accessibility support as being both good and bad. Good, in that it basically just works. Bad, in that, because it more-or-less just works, a lot of developers tend to not think about it and there is danger that it can slip off our radar. IMHO, it's important that we keep accessibility on our radar as we explore updates and alternatives in our UX.
To that end, I'm thinking that it would be good if the Planning Council could send a gentle reminder of the importance of maintaining accessibility as a goal to the cross-project community.
It would also be great if somebody could have a look at our accessibility resources (e.g., the
Accessibility wiki page) and make sure that they're up-to-date.
In a related note that we regularly get requests for verification that the Eclipse IDE works with one screen reader or another. We also regularly get requests for VPATs; primarily from US government departments and from large organisations that do work with the US government.
Wayne
-- Wayne Beaton
Director of Open Source Projects | Eclipse Foundation
My working day may not be your working day! Please don’t feel obliged to read or reply to this e-mail outside of your normal working hours.
